Mike dechaine 2023
- Thread starter Pool artist
- Start date
Here is my statement:
“Why would anyone who lives in the greatest country in the world want to dedicate all that time and effort to become a pool player? It makes no sense when there are so many other ways to make money in the US. Let’s have our youth dedicate their lives to a game that pays peanuts instead of school, sports etc.”
Your response
“Yeah. Because making money is the definition of "living a good life". So sad to hear this. I am betting SVB might disagree with your assessment. With his drive, he could have made a lot more money in his life. He seems to be enjoying his fishing.”
Okay. I reviewed the back and forth, and mentioned that it is "sad" that players are so focused on money in America, that they inevitably stall out "because" money is their sole focus, rather than being the very best player they can be, being their focus.
If you wanna say that I was "bashing" you for anything, I would say it was because you seem to take the view that "money" should be the end focus. Which I vehemently disagree with. History is full of instances of great artists/sportspeople who were the best, simply because they wanted to be, and had the talent. Some made money. Some did not.
Me saying that American players fail to generally excel on the world stage BECAUSE of money is NOT "justifying" that attitude. It is CRITICIZING it. My stance is consistent. I am specifically criticizing the American player mindset, not justifying anything. Here's an interesting observation.... Filler had no more realistic chance than say, Mike Dechaine, at earning a good paycheck from the game. The difference in American attitudes versus European attitudes is the critical difference, NOT the money. If anything, with less gambling in Germany, Filler stood a MUCH less chance of ever becoming world #1, and here's the critical point... "If money was the objective."
I IN NO WAY support the idea of players making their decision to pursue excellence being based completely on money. All my criticisms have actually been against this. SVB certainly didn't pursue pool for the money, despite having been moderately successful at that aspect. And I clearly make the point of focus on gambling being detrimental to their game, because it focuses their game around money, not excellence for the sake of excellence.
Where are we miscommunicating here?
Excellence for the sake of excellence is a noble pursuit...one I try to drive home to my kids all the time. I believe it all comes down to: is pool actually viewed as a sport in the US?
I don't know of any country that takes such a wide range of sports as seriously as the US does. One only has to look at the medal counts for the last several Olympic games, which have some very obscure sports. Sports where there is a smaller chance of earning a living than in pool.
In 2020, the US earned more GOLD medals than Germany earned TOTAL medals.
Total medal count
US - 113
Germany- 37
This illustrates that if pool were genuinely viewed as a legit sport, there would be a ton more resources poured into developing players. Sports such as handball, race- walking, trampoline, fencing, and dozens of other Olympic sports that have no professional footprint, all have Olympic Development programs in the US...
Maybe one day pool will get there.
For the record... USA versus Germany population is 337 million to 83 million. Approximately 4 to 1 population advantage, which if the medal wins were proportional, means USA should have 120 medals to Germany's 30. America's GDP per capita versus Germany's, is about 25% more, as well. When taking both money and population into account, Germany swings above it's weight, as compared to USA.
And both China and Germany have an average of 1 medal per 2.2 million people of population, where America's is 1 per 2.9 million. And USA GDP outstrips total China GDP by approximately 33%, which outpopulates America ~ 4 to 1. Just saying this to illustrate that pure medal count doesn't count for much, without taking into account how a population uses it's money and population, re: Olympics medal wins.
These countries are either more motivated, or spend their training money better. Note: medal "count" as a pure number doesn't mean much (as China has far more medal..). Whereas medal count average per total population, or per dollar per Capita GDP are much more accurate measurements. Some countries do a lot more, with a lot less.
Wait. Are you calling the U.S. the greatest country in the world?
Hmmm. All I was illustrating is that when the US views a sport as an actual sport, they will pour resources into it. It was never meant as a dig on germany. It is does lead one to question why you spend so much energy defending Germany. I was under the impression that you were an American. My apologies.
Let's be real for a minute.
Excellence for the sake of excellence is a luxury only found within AMATEUR sports in 2023. Things may have been different 50 years ago.
Playing pool only for glory doesn't feed one's self, let alone a family. Competing at the highest levels of pool is a monumental task, and one that includes competing against players that play pool up to 12 hours (or more) a day at times.
I play for the personal challenge as SBR describes BUT that doesn't mean a professional caliber player can do the same. Once the realization is made that a 9 to 5 is necessary, pool takes a back seat and competing against those that aren't sitting in that seat next to you is all but impossible.
Also...
The whole notion that it's our gambling culture that's holding US pool back is suspect. I think it's actually way more simple. It's a combination of 2 things -- the game being very difficult and our social league system understanding this. As the professional players have continued to improve, the American amateurs have recognized that they're playing a different game, and the separation between the pros and amateurs has grown. Quite frankly, it's a collectively intelligent realization to make as you can have A LOT of fun playing pool, while not dedicating your life to it.
Lastly, amateurs that point at the pros who they believe don't have the drive to succeed that they do -- are most likely in denial about THEIR level of dedication. It's really easy for us mortals to cast aspersions at pros, and pretend we would do differently if we were only gifted with the same level of talent. The reality is -- we wouldn’t!
Excellence for the sake of excellence is a luxury only found within AMATEUR sports in 2023. Things may have been different 50 years ago.
Playing pool only for glory doesn't feed one's self, let alone a family. Competing at the highest levels of pool is a monumental task, and one that includes competing against players that play pool up to 12 hours (or more) a day at times.
I play for the personal challenge as SBR describes BUT that doesn't mean a professional caliber player can do the same. Once the realization is made that a 9 to 5 is necessary, pool takes a back seat and competing against those that aren't sitting in that seat next to you is all but impossible.
Also...
The whole notion that it's our gambling culture that's holding US pool back is suspect. I think it's actually way more simple. It's a combination of 2 things -- the game being very difficult and our social league system understanding this. As the professional players have continued to improve, the American amateurs have recognized that they're playing a different game, and the separation between the pros and amateurs has grown. Quite frankly, it's a collectively intelligent realization to make as you can have A LOT of fun playing pool, while not dedicating your life to it.
Lastly, amateurs that point at the pros who they believe don't have the drive to succeed that they do -- are most likely in denial about THEIR level of dedication. It's really easy for us mortals to cast aspersions at pros, and pretend we would do differently if we were only gifted with the same level of talent. The reality is -- we wouldn’t!
I am not "defending" Germany. I am illustrating that whatever your logic was with the statement "In 2020, the US earned more GOLD medals than Germany earned TOTAL medals" was, it doesn't hold up. It doesn't mean USA is "better" at the Olympics than Germany. It just means that USA has a bigger population. Nothing more, nothing less. And it IS important to take into account how many medals were earned per "x" population amount, or per "x" amount of GDP.
I personally think there are WAY too many people in America these days with a mind consumed with rabid nationalism. Einstein also thought of rabid nationalism as a sort of mental disease. For obvious reasons, given the time period and geographic location he lived in. There's a lot of things that other countries do better than America. Like making sure that their children are not murdered in school shootings, to make sure the gun industry profits stay high, for one.
It would be better if more Americans were critical of what we are severely failing at, instead of this fawning, self-deluding nationalism, that keeps us from fixing what is CLEARLY broken in our country.
Let’s use this medal example for the Mosconi Cup then. 44 countries to our 1 and people wonder why we can’t win. Pool has grown in those 44 countries over the years while it continues to decline here.
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Yes! And if you don’t believe this please move. Or maybe you can reincarnate to a better country in another life pal.
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Yes, because America is in end-stage capitalism, where the only thing that matters is squeezing the most amount of money out of everything, no matter the ill effect on the populace, whereas other countries have other priorities. One prime example of this is how the American food chain is completely poisoned by adding sugar to everything possible, because the food industry figured out we eat more of ANY food that has sugar in it, whether we can taste it or not.
There is a LOT to criticize in American "culture". Only naïve fools believe we are best at "all the things". Our over-emphasis on money will be the death of us. Figuratively AND literally. And "love it or leave it", is just more simpleton foolishness. A true patriot would want to fix what is broken before it destroys their nation. We could fix our medical cost issues in one generation if we got control over the malicious behavior of the food industry alone. Most serious health issues would be fixed by this one change. And yet a certain political faction fights any and all efforts to do so, "in the name of freedom". Food industry propaganda is very effective, when set against a certain non-intellectually aware population segment.
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We are far from perfect I’ll give you that.
I agree. I think You have to have an intense love for the game to fuel the drive. I just wish the players were rewarded more for their excellence. If money is your end goal do something else. lol I make a nice living in this world for the average education I have but I would be 100x happier making less and playing this game for a living.
I’ve won some nice pay days playing this game but the memories of how I played and walking out the last man standing far out weigh that money. It was just a nice bonus.
they handed us a big stack of cash for this Tournament. No idea what I spent it on but the guys in the pic our life time friends and the guy in the white shirt is a friend I’d take a bullet for. We have been best friends for 30 years. No idea what I spent the cash on but the memory of grinding it out for 3 days to win it will never go away. Sorry if thats off track but I feel it’s the same For pro players. They work hard and grind because they love the game and fortunately they are good enough to grind out a living but the money was never the goal I believe.
Attachments
Cookouts , Family , weekends, it’s all priceless. Happy for him , glad I figured it out early on in life as well!!!! Smartest move a pool player can make is to stay in school or get a career going , play pool whenever you have extra time .
Pretty much this.
Back in the day when I was one of the top local players. the up-and-coming young guns would ask me for advice.
These kids probably had 2-3 years into the game on 9 foot tables, so they were not so invested that they could not correct course.
I told every one of them to sell their cues and walk away from the game.
To get to the next few levels -even to get to where I was, would take thousands of hours.
Hours that would surely be wasted when compared to what those hours could accomplish doing so many other things.
If I could go back in time to when I was say, a 4 in the APA, I would settle for that level and focus my time and energy on something with a bigger payoff. Just use pool as social/entertainment time.
Golf is similar in that respect. Go whack the ball around once a month with your buddies and have a good time.
Once you start playing 5 rounds a week and buying expensive clubs, you are going to invest thousands of hours and tens of thousands of dollars into what will only be a hobby.
Pick a different hobby and be happy as a duffer. Trade 20 hours of practice per week into 2, and spend the extra 18 hours with family and friends or other interests.
The US will not support 99.999% of pool careers so just have fun with it or let it go.
I would not encourage anyone to get into the game as a career unless they were independently wealthy already, and could dedicate the time to the game without the pressure of paying bills or other responsibilities.
JMHO
TIL China only has 193 million people. Exactly how does that math work where China has a larger population than the USA, lower medal count than the USA, but the per capita medal count for China is higher than the USA?
Youth availability for pool halls isn't necessarily due to a profit motive. I'm sure there's plenty of halls out there that would love to host youth leagues Saturday from 9AM - 1PM or whatever (and not serve alcohol during that time). However, there's a few pretty powerful "moral" lobbies in the USA (i.e MADD) that would throw an absolute hissy fit should a pool hall go to modify a permit, or if that requires a city counsil to modify a line in a regulation. In this situation MADD is likely to get their way, because who can possibly be PRO drunk driving?
That's statistically sound advice for all sports. Actually - it's statistically sound advice for any human endeavor that involves competition. What's a person to do? Sit around in mediocrity and chase a pay check?
Yes -- there comes a point in everyone's life where they need to make this decision BUT we need to leave some room for dreams, otherwise life becomes complete drudgery.
Thank God for the dreamers!
Mainland China's current population is roughly 1.5BILLION. No clue where you got that #. Taiwan is about 25million.
ShortBusRus’s claim was that China had 1 Olympic medal for every 2.2million citizens compared to the USA’s per capita rate of 1 per 2.9million people. I’m sarcastically responding to that claim, I know what China’s population is, I live there part time.
China had 88 medals in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. In order for SBR’s claim to be true China would have to have a population of 193,000,000 - which is obviously false.